Indiana Tech Law will dedicate its 2016 Annual Symposium to the pressing issue of the prison industrial complex, and specifically the role of private prisons in mass incarceration. The symposium will seek to contextualize the criminal justice system against the backdrop of the for-profit prison system, particularly the system’s reliance upon high rates of incarceration to sustain its business model. The symposium seeks to address a broad range of questions, including how the profit-motive of private prisons influences the length and severity of sentences and availability of parole, how private prisons and mass incarceration disproportionately impact communities of color, and how private prisons contribute to social inequality and oppression.

The United States imprisons more people, both per capita and in absolute terms, than any other nation in the world. Since the 1980’s, the government has increasingly turned to private corporations to build, maintain, and operate prisons to house the burgeoning prison population. This unprecedented level of incarceration by for-profit corporations has important implications for law and policy, not only in the context of criminal justice but also in immigration detainment and deportation matters. Currently, for-profit prisons detain 6% of state prisoners, 16% of federal prisoners, and nearly half of all immigrants detained for documentation status.The private prison system raises issues that touch upon criminal sentencing, immigration policy, the legitimacy of delegating carceral policy to the private sector, and fundamental liberty guarantees under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The symposium agenda and registration information can be accessed here.